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Facts and Opinions Volume I – Nov. 27, 1909 – Number 21 The Bomb Case and Anglo-India
The comments of the Anglo-Indian papers on the result of the appeal in the Alipur case are neither particularly edifying nor do they tend to remove the impression shared by us with many thoughtful Englishmen that the imperial race is being seriously demoralised by empire. From the Englishman we expect nothing better, and in fact we are agreeably surprised at the comparative harmlessness of its triumphant article on the day after the judgment. Its reference to the nonsense about there being no sedition in India and no party of Revolution leaves our withers unwrung. We ourselves belong to a party of peaceful revolution, for it is a rapid revolution in the system of Government in India which is the aim of our political efforts, and it is idle to object to us that there have been no peaceful revolutions and cannot be. History gives the lie to that statement, whether it proceeds from Mr. Gokhale or from Anglo-India. We have also always admitted that there is a Terrorist party, for bombs are not thrown without hands and men are not shot for political reasons unless there is Terrorism in the background. All we have contended, — and our contention is not overthrown by the judgment in the Alipur appeal, which merely proves that the conspiracy was not childish, and by no means that it was a big or widespread organisation, — is that the attempt of the Anglo-Indian papers to blacken the whole movement, and especially the whole Nationalist Party, is either an erroneous or an unscrupulous attempt, and the disposition of the police to arrest every young Swadeshi worker as a rebel and a dacoit is foolish, wrong-headed, often dishonest, and may easily become fatal to the chances of a peaceful solution of the dispute between the Government and the people. The Englishman, however, represents a lower grade of intellect and refinement to which these considerations are not likely to present themselves. The
Page – 283 average respectable Englishman is better represented by the Statesman, and the one dominating note in the Statesman is that of regret that the Courts had to go through the ordinary procedure of the law and could not effect a swift dramatic and terror-striking vindication of the inviolability of the British Government. One would have thought that a nation with the legal and political traditions of the English people would have been glad that the procedure of law had been preserved, the chances of error minimised and the State still safeguarded; and that no ground had been given for a charge of differentiating between a political and an ordinary trial to the prejudice of the accused. It is evident, however, that the type of Englishman demoralised by empire and absolute power considers that, in political cases, the Law Courts should not occupy themselves with finding out the truth, but be used as a political instrument for vengeance and striking terror into political opponents.
We congratulate Mr. Aswini Banerji on the able and vigorous speech delivered by him as the President of the Nadiya Conference. He took up an attitude which was at once manly and free from excess or violence. For ourselves the first point we turned to was the pronouncement on the Reforms. We do not think the judgment of the country on this ill-conceived measure could have been put with greater truth and force than in the periods of good-humoured contempt and irony, scathing yet in perfectly good taste, in which Mr. Banerji disposed of the claims of the Reform Scheme to be a measure of popular self-government. If all public men take the same attitude, the day of a true measure of popular control will be much nearer than if we affect a qualified satisfaction with this political bauble. As Mr. Banerji forcibly pointed out, it does not provide for a popular electorate, it does not admit of the election of popular leaders, it does not create a non-Government majority, or, as we would add, even the reasonable possibility of a strong opposition on essential points. What has the country to do with a reformed Council stripped of these
Page – 284 essentials ? The Jo-hookums, the self-seekers, the nonentities who wish to take advantage of the exclusion of distinguished and leading names in order to enjoy, at the expense of the country’s interests, the kudos and substantial advantages of a seat on the Councils will scramble for the newly-created heaven; that is the kind of co-operation which the Government will get from the non-Mussulman part of the nation under this scheme. The country remains sullen and dissatisfied.
The tour undertaken by Mr. Ramsay Macdonald in India has been cut short by the call from England summoning him home to take his part in the great struggle which is the beginning of the end of Conservative and semi-aristocratic England. In the peaceful revolution which that struggle presages and in which it must sooner or later culminate, Mr. Macdonald’s party stands to be the final winners. It is the semi-Socialistic Radical element in the Ministry attracted toward the Labour party to which the precipitation of this inevitable struggle is due. The Labour party is now predominatingly Socialistic and is purging itself of the old individualistic leaven which looked forward to no higher ideal than an eight-hours day, Old Age pensions and Trade Union politics. The Labour members, Messrs. Burt and Fenwick, who represent this old-world element, have received notice to quit from the Labour organisations which helped them into Parliament and much nonsense of a kind familiar to ourselves is being talked about the ingratitude of Labour to these veterans. The only justification for the existence of these gentlemen in Parliament is that they stand for the new insurgent demos and, if they cannot keep pace with the advancing sentiment of the people who keep them in Parliament, their duty is to retire, and the ingratitude is theirs if they try to hamper the progress of their lifelong supporters by fighting the representatives of the new aspirations in the interests of a middle-class party. Mr. Macdonald belongs to the new thought, but he is, we believe, one of those who would hasten slowly to the goal. He has not the rugged
Page – 285 personality of Mr. Keir Hardie, but combines in himself, in a way Mr. Hardie scarcely does, the old culture and the new spirit. He has as broad a sympathy and as penetrating an intelligence as Mr. Nevinson, but not the latter’s quick intensity. Nevertheless, behind the slow consideration and calm thoughtfulness of his manner, one detects hidden iron and the concealed roughness of the force that has come to destroy and to build, some hint of the rugged outlines of Demogorgon, the claws of Narasingha. For everyman is not only himself, he is that which he represents. Mr. Macdonald has been reserved and cautious during his visit and has spoken out only on the Reforms and Reuter, nor have his remarks on these subjects passed the limits of what any sincere Liberal would hold to be a moderate statement of the truth. Mr. Macdonald is one who does not speak out the whole of himself, he is a politician born, and born politicians do not care to outpace by too great a stride the speedily accomplishable fact. Whatever wider vistas they may see beyond, they prefer to move steadily towards them rather than to speak of them. So far as an Englishman can help India, and that under present circumstances is hardly at all, he certainly wishes to help. It is not his fault that the blindness of his countrymen and the conditions of the problem in India make men like him, perforce, little better than sympathetic spectators of the passionate struggle between established privilege and a nation in the making that the world watches now in India.
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